


The Princesses of Kirkwall

by LadyNorbert



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Bethany and Carver Hawke Live, Brief Bethany Hawke, Children of Characters, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Gen, Hawke & Varric Tethras Friendship, Kirkwall (Dragon Age), Married Couple, Minor Original Character(s), Parental Varric Tethras, Varric Tethras' Nicknames
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:20:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26198497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyNorbert/pseuds/LadyNorbert
Summary: One fine Kirkwall morning, the Viscount tells his daughters a story consisting of mostly true lies.
Relationships: Bethany Hawke/Varric Tethras
Comments: 7
Kudos: 10
Collections: Black Emporium 2020





	The Princesses of Kirkwall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lucyrne (theungenue)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theungenue/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Neither Chick Nor Child](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25698772) by [lucyrne (theungenue)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theungenue/pseuds/lucyrne). 



> This fic is a distant sequel of sorts to lucyrne's adorable story "Neither Chick Nor Child." Anything you don't recognize or understand comes from there, so I highly recommend reading that first. (Also because it's just a darn good story.) Many thanks to both of my beta readers, neither of whom I can identify until after the reveals are made lest I give away my own identity, and also to the BE mods who do such an amazing job every year.

“It used to be called the Wounded Coast, you know,” said Varric, rather conversationally.

Two pairs of bright eyes peered curiously at him across the breakfast table. “What do you mean?”

“That long weird stretch of beach just outside of Kirkwall,” their father replied. “With the paths that go nowhere and the random cave that still has a wagon sitting in its entrance after all these years. We’ve never taken you there, so I’m asking you to use your considerable imaginations.”

“Okay,” said Dorrotea slowly, “but why are you bringing up this place we’ve never seen when no one was talking about it?”

“Because introducing a new idea out of absolutely nowhere is a classic way to start a story, Peanut. You _do_ want a story, don’t you?”

“Yes!” the girls chorused. Varric chuckled.

“I thought so. Well, like I said, it used to be called the Wounded Coast, but nowadays we just call it ‘the Coast.’ I took your mother there, once, and asked her to smile at the place, and after that it wasn’t wounded anymore.”

Alys groaned (not very convincingly) and put her hand over her eyes. “Daaaaad.”

“What?” This was said in a tone of innocence such as would not fool small dogs or household furnishings. 

“Mother can’t heal _places_ just by _smiling_ at them. Nobody can do _that._ ”

The Viscount of Kirkwall feigned a look of indignant dismay. “You… you aren’t telling me that… you don’t believe me?”

Alys and Dorrotea exchanged glances, and rolled their eyes. “There’s a hole in that story that Bianca could shoot a bolt through,” said Dot.

“I am devastated. Absolutely crushed. My own children turn on me.”

* * *

Technically speaking, Kirkwall did not have princesses.

At least, it wasn’t supposed to have princesses. The daughters of a Viscount were not entitled to such an honorific. Instead, they were formally styled as _Their Honorable Ladyships, Alys and Dorrotea, Daughters of the Most Noble House of Tethras in the Free Marches._ This was how Seneschal Bran, Kirkwall’s leading expert on All Things Stuffy and Not Fun, insisted on naming them in official documents and introducing them to people. To their faces, they were _Lady Alys_ and _Lady Dorrotea_. Much more informally (especially among the residents of Darktown and members of the Merchants’ Guild), they were known as _The Mistresses of Mischief Who Should Never Be Underestimated Or You Will Be Sorry._

Nevertheless, it was generally understood - within the city walls and without - that Kirkwall did, in fact, have a pair of princesses. It would have been hard to say exactly why this was. Part of it was simply the charm of the notion; _Princess Alys_ and _Princess Dot_ rolled off the tongue of the average Kirkwaller in a most delightful fashion. Part of it was the way it implied greater prestige for the city-state; nobility was nothing to sneeze at, sure, but royalty was something else, something Kirkwall had lacked since the blue-eyed prince of priests had gone back to Starkhaven. And part of it was simply the fact that their father wore (in his words) a pointy circle on his head, and men who wear pointy circles should always have princesses for daughters, that was just an accepted truth.

Alys, being the elder of the pair, was generally regarded as heiress presumptive to the throne. Varric was completely on board with it if running Kirkwall was what Stormy wanted to do when she grew up. It wasn’t like _he_ wanted the job, after all; but his butt had been forced into the chair, and there it was stuck at least until she was old enough to take over for him. That she was a mage like her mother was a teensy bit of a sticky wicket, but he would pull every last string necessary to make sure the throne and the crown were hers uncontested. Varric had a lot of strings he could pull, up to and including Divine Victoria herself.

And if Alys became Viscountess, there was no question that Dot would become her… well, her something. Chief advisor, or bodyguard, or court jester, or maybe all three. Peanut had inherited his sense of humor. Bran did not appreciate it. She was ten and Alys was twelve, so it was perhaps a little early to be expecting either of them to consider a political career, but life had a way of not going where anyone thought it would and it was as well to be ready for just about anything.

* * *

“All right,” he said, lifting his hands in a gesture of something vaguely resembling surrender. “It’s still the Wounded Coast. But if anyone ever _could_ heal a place by smiling at it, your mother would be the first.”

“Okay, that’s fair.” Alys giggled a bit.

“Where is Mother, anyway?” asked Dot.

“Gone to help your Uncle Carver with something. I didn’t ask for details,” Varric added. “The less I know, the better. Plausible deniability and all that. Very important thing to have, girls, especially with uncles like yours.”

Finishing his coffee, he sat back in the chair and surveyed them with twinkling eyes. “But I suppose you want a _real_ story, then, to make up for the one about the Wounded Coast.”

“Yes!” they chorused again, sounding just slightly indignant this time.

“And I suppose you don’t want to hear about an incredibly handsome dwarf and his friend who got crowned king of the nugs.”

“Sate his appetite with cheese,” said Dot, her deadpan tone an excellent imitation of his.

“Oh, I told you that one, did I? Well, then, I guess I’ll have to tell you about the magical queen who rescued a handsome merchant prince from wasting in a lonely tower - that’s catchy, I should write that down - and had two beautiful princesses.” His lips twitched as he watched the delight dawning in their young faces. “Does that sound like a story you want to hear?”

“Oh yes, _please_.”

Bran, whose timing was the stuff of legends, chose that moment to appear in the family breakfast room. “Your Excellency, I wanted to remind you that you have a meeting with the delegation from Kaiten in about two hours.”

Varric waved him off. “I’ll be there. I’m doing something extremely important just now.”

Bran looked from him to the eager faces of the two girls, and stifled what Varric was fairly sure would have been a long-suffering kind of sigh. “Yes, Your Excellency. I’ll just gather the documents needing your signature and put them in your office.”

“Good idea.”

* * *

Once upon a time in Kirkwall, there was a dashing and captivating rogue, who raised a storm on the shores of Ferelden and rode it here in a refugee boat. He wore billowing capes and tight pants, and you could practically hear a sparkling sound every time he flashed a pearly white smile. However, this story is not about him.

Surrounding this rakish devil was a small gaggle of loyal if variously annoying compatriots, who supported him in all of his endeavors whether they liked it or not. There was a fierce and terrifying guardswoman, with fiery red hair and no concept of leisure time; she accompanied him and his family to Kirkwall and was there for just about everything. There was a mischievous pirate queen who liked big boats, and a surly white-haired elf who won the world championship in brooding for three years in a row. The rogue also picked up a cute clumsy elf girl who understood the value of books and history but not the value of keeping out of private gardens or learning her way around the city, a mage with a little too much personality and a serious impulse control problem, and an allegedly handsome prince who spent most of his waking hours praising Andraste, so we’ll just leave him to that and not involve him in this adventure. Because this story isn’t about any of them, either.

When he came to Kirkwall, our friend the rogue brought his lovely but ill-fated mother, and his younger brother and sister, who were twins. The brother liked to carry weapons which were larger than he was, and could use them to hit things with impressive strength and accuracy, but the story isn’t really about him either.

The story _is_ about their sister. She was a young woman, small and delicately formed, with elegant hands that held magic in their fingers. The magic was like silver thread, and she could weave it into satin sheets of power that she draped over reality to make everything around her as beautiful as herself. She couldn’t really do that, mostly because nothing could be as beautiful as she was, but she tried.

The story is also about the rogue’s other companion, the one I haven’t mentioned yet. He was an extraordinarily handsome merchant prince, with a wealth of golden chest hair, who dwelled high above the lowest part of the city in a creaking tower that smelled like spilled beer and crumpled parchment. From that tower he cast his own kind of magic spells, curling drops of ink across pieces of paper and arranging them into stories to ensnare the minds of anyone who read them. He drank and he played cards and he laughed and he thought he was happy.

Spoiler alert, he was not as happy as he told himself he was.

The merchant prince and the rogue hadn’t known each other for very long - about a year, I believe - when the rogue’s sister was taken away. She was shut up inside a tower of her own, a great stone monolith where she learned to hone her magic and make it even more powerful. She was there for many years, and the merchant prince missed her sorely, for they were good friends. He wrote to her, though, and visited her when he could. As the years passed, she became not only a great mage but a queen, ruling over the hearts of everyone who met her, because she was wise and kind as well as beautiful.

_Okay, don’t look at me like that, I promise this is going somewhere. I’m just trying to set the scene first._

So about the merchant prince. It would be hard to call him _cursed,_ exactly, because his life really wasn’t terrible there in that tower. What happened to him, though… well, for starters, he had a brother. His brother was everything our merchant prince was not - mired in tradition, greedy, narrow-minded, and frequently lacking in hygiene. The prince, meanwhile, was friendly and clean and preferred playing cards with friends to hunting for treasure. As a result, his brother didn’t like him very much, and when opportunity presented itself, he used some dark magic of his own to trap the merchant prince in his tower. Even after his brother died, the merchant prince remained a prisoner.

What you have to understand is that he wasn’t really trapped, not the way you might be thinking. He could come and go as he pleased, and anyone could visit his rooms if they were so inclined. So he really didn’t think he was trapped, not at all. At one point he was even dragged out of the tower, completely against his will no matter what anybody else might tell you about the situation, and he would have given anything to be allowed back. So he never really saw himself as a prisoner at all.

By the time the merchant did finally return to his creaking wooden tower, and the ale had gone sour and the ink had dried up, the beautiful mage queen was free of her own imprisonment and sought to free him from his. It just took a while before he knew that’s what she was doing. She didn’t visit him at his tower too much; rather, she gave him leave to come to hers. She lived in a white stone castle in the highest part of the realm, and the sun shone from every window as she looked out on her kingdom, and her beauty and grace and kindness lured him to her side day after day. She even gave him a key, so he could come and go from her palace whenever he wanted, but it took him a little while to understand that what she had really given him was the key to her heart.

_Yes, I will pause here so you can say ‘awwwww.’ Go ahead, Stormy._

But he was still trapped, and under the weight of more than one spell. His brother had put one on him, and someone he had known many years earlier had put him under another, of a very different sort. This one kept the prince’s heart bound up inside himself, sealed tight like the lid of a lyrium transport container, so it could not get out and give itself away. _That_ , my dearest listeners, is the spell which the queen found a way to break.

It wasn’t easy. He would be the first to admit that he did not make it easy. She gave him that key I mentioned, and all he could think about was that he was fond of breaking into places and having a key sort of took all the fun out of that. He would bring her flowers, but even to himself he didn’t admit why he was doing it. It was unusual for more than a day or two to pass without him coming to bask in the sunshine of her presence, and he never stopped to think about why that was or how important it had become to him, because he simply didn’t want to admit it. She was toying with the lid on that box in which he kept his heart, and rather than consider opening it or telling her not to bother, he convinced himself that all she was doing was oiling the hinges.

Of course, part of the reason it took him so long to figure it out was because he was still a merchant prince, emphasis on merchant. He had work to do. And she had work to do too, of course, being a queen and all. They were very busy. But they were never too busy for each other, and the prince would often use his merchant contacts to make sure that the queen had everything she needed to be comfortable and secure in her ivory palace.

And then one day, it happened.

_I’m pausing for dramatic emphasis, Peanut._

The beautiful queen with the honey brown eyes, the elegant spellcaster with hands of silk and heart of gold, came to him and told him the thing he never expected but had always needed to hear. She said that she loved him. With those magic words, the spell which bound him was broken, and the containment box fell away and released his heart so that he could give to her properly. And he soon after left that creaking wooden tower, and had to move into an even higher castle than the one in which his queen lived, and be crowned the lord of the land, whether he wanted it or not. So he married his queen, letting her rule over all of Kirkwall just as she ruled over him, with her loving kindness and gentle strength.

In addition to every other happiness imaginable, the prince and the queen became parents, and Kirkwall counted among its greatest treasures the two princesses who roamed the streets in search of adventure, just as their father and uncle had done. One was an incorrigible imp, with freckles on her nose and her father’s gift for lining up precise shots with her bow and arrows. The other was her mother’s copy, a black-haired beauty who could weave magic between her fingertips. With spellcraft and sinew they set out to conquer the Free Marches, little crowns on their heads and goodness in their hearts. 

The only place they will never be allowed to go is the Deep Roads, because there’s no place in the world that their father hates more than the Deep Roads.

* * *

“Well,” said Varric, “what do you think about that?”

“I think Mother would tell it differently,” said Alys.

“True,” said a new voice, and all three of them looked up to see Bethany, leaning against the doorframe with her arms folded. “I would tell it a little differently - but only a little.”

“How long were you listening?” asked Varric, amused.

“Long enough to hear about that magical containment box where you used to keep your heart.” She crossed to his side and bent to kiss his cheek. “I never knew it was all locked up, poor heart.”

“Well, it’s safer in your hands than it ever was in there anyway.” He glanced at his giggling daughters. “What?”

“Nothing,” Dot managed.

“Meanwhile, if the Princesses of Kirkwall are quite finished with their breakfast,” said the Viscountess, “they should go and get cleaned up so we can go adventuring, while Seneschal Bran herds his boss off to a meeting.” Varric groaned, but the girls looked delighted.

“Ooh! Where, Mother?”

“Aunt Aveline and Uncle Donnic are going to escort us on a little trip to the Wounded Coast. Your tutor thought it might be educational as part of your lessons in Kirkwall history.”

“Oh,” said Alys, with a feigned innocence she had clearly learned from her father, “are you going to smile at it and then it will only be the Coast?”

Bethany paused, and glanced at her husband. “Dear, _what_ have you been telling them?”

“Nothing but the absolute truth, madam. Like always.”


End file.
